The Impact Crater 10.18.07

Welcome, one and all, to the Impact Crater. In a lot of ways, this is the beginning of a new era. We’re just three weeks removed from TNA Impact’s debut as a two hour program. We just saw a pay per view event from the promotion which resulted in the crowning of three new champions. We’re getting ready for Kevin Nash to make his long-awaited (?) return to the ring. However, despite all of these milestones, something even bigger is going to happen. Something that will change the face of TNA wrestling for many years to come. That’s right, I’m talking about the debut of the Impact Crater’s brand new mascot. Ladies and gentlemen, gaze upon the future.

Quick & Dirty Results

Segment #1: Kurt Angle/Kevin Nash Interview Segment
Segment #2: Alex Shelley vs. Chris Sabin in a Fight for Your Right (TO PARRRRRRRTY!) Tournament Match went to a no contest when the Dudley Boys killed them both.
Segment #3: The Amazing Kong def. Talia Madison
Segment #4: Bobby Roode & James Storm def. Chris Harris & Rhino
Segment #5: Presentation of Championships to Gail Kim, AJ Styles, Travis Tomko, & Sting
Segment #6: Frankie Kazarian def. Lance Hoyt in a Fight for Your Right (TO PARRRRRRRTY!) Tournament Match
Segment #7: Abyss def. Disco Inferno
Segment #8: Christian def. Samoa Joe in a Fight for Your Right (TO PARRRRRRRTY!) Tournament Match

The Main Stuff

Angle Numero Uno: Oh Doctor, Where Art Thou

Though it was hinted at last week, it becomes pretty clear after tonight’s show that we’re headed in to some sort of a Kevin Nash vs. Kurt Angle vs. Sting three-way feud for the TNA Championship. I know that the chances of Kevin Nash having a very good title match at this stage of his career are very slim. You know that the chances of Kevin Nash having a very good title match at this stage of his career are very slim. However, I still cannot say that I am bothered by this angle. For all of the complaining that I’ve done about Nash’s involvement in TNA over the course of the last year, he has been absolutely awesome since they’ve had him drop the comedy bullshit and become a serious character. The guy has more ability to deliver on the stick than the vast majority of TNA guys who would be guaranteed to have a great match against Sting and Angle, and, when it comes to making money off of pay per views, that’s what matters. It’s similar to the Steiner Brothers vs. Dudley Boys feud that recently concluded, which I repeatedly called one of the best rivalries in TNA history despite the fact that the Steiners are well past their physical primes.

So Nash is definitely holding up his end of the bargain. The Angle/Sting interaction on this particular episode of Impact was also quite good. We’ve put behind us all of the stupidity involving phantom slaps and attacks on sons. Instead, we’re finally getting what this feud should have been in the first place: One guy who’s a jerk fighting against one guy who’s a hero for what they both believe is the greatest prize in the professional wrestling industry. It’s that simple, and that’s all it had to be from the beginning. What will really be interesting to see is how Sting interacts with Nash as the feud progresses. They’re technically both faces, but Nash did beat the crap out of the Stinger during the last pay per view match, and I’m not entirely certain whether TNA should let that go and have them team up against their common foe or whether they should maintain the tension between the two good guys. There are ways to take either route that would be entertaining, so I suppose we’ll have to wait and see just how the execution plays itself out.

My only real problem with the story as it was told this week was Kurt Angle’s continued desire to insert meaningless comedy in to all of his rivalries. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it was in the past, but it’s not necessary and more often than not detracts from the serious part of the story, which is what entices people to buy PPVs. Nobody cares about Kevin Nash’s love of pornography, even if they do get a brief chuckle out of it.

Angle Numero Dos: Fight for Your Right is Alright

First of all, how DARE Frankie Kazarian steal my Beastie Boys joke. I’m challenging you to a match at Genesis, Kaz.

Anyway, they did this tournament last year, and I ran the damn thing in to the ground. There were reverse battle royales, “stages” that didn’t make any sense, seeding that seemed completely irrelevant, and mystery brackets that were poorly announced if they even were at all. I have to say that Version 2.0 of Fight for Your Right is moving along much better than its predecessor. Granted, they still did the reverse battle royale, which remains the dumbest idea for a match in professional wrestling history. However, from what I understand, they at least kept it down to three minutes of a tournament that will go on for several weeks. They also brought back the meaningless seeding scheme, but that’s a minor enough point that I’m willing to just scratch my head and move on as opposed to spending paragraphs ranting about it.

With that said, everything they did for the tournament on this week’s episode gets a big thumbs up from yours truly. First of all, I’d like to point out that they had BRACKETS and that they showed these brackets throughout the program. Unless you took the utmost care to dissect last year’s tournament, it was virtually impossible to keep track of who was facing who, and that problem is officially alleviated. Brackets are always a great thing to have in wrestling tournaments (or any tournament really) because a.) they announce matches in advance, which allows fans’ anticipation to grow and b.) speculating about potential matches in later rounds of a tournament is a fun activity that can help keep fans interested in your product.

I’m also fine with what happened in the tournament this week. Frankie Kazarian defeating Lance Hoyt was clearly the correct result, and I don’t think there’s anybody alive who will dispute that one. The more controversial decision might be eliminating both Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin from the tournament in favor of Christian Cage and Samoa Joe, with Christian ultimately winning out and advancing. First of all, I can’t complain about neither Shelley nor Sabin advancing. The fact of the matter is that neither guy would have had a realistic possibility of winning the whole thing anyway, so it doesn’t matter to me whether they’re simultaneously eliminated in the first round or whether one of them makes it all the way to the finals and loses. At least this way they got out early and can spend the rest of the TV time leading up to the pay per view advancing their budding feud with the Dudley Boys. As far as the Christian/Joe result is concerned, I mentioned last week that, even though Joe had the potential to be the biggest babyface in TNA at one point, it’s pretty clear that the company isn’t going to go that way anytime soon. As a result, we should take a look at their booking of Joe from the way that they view him (as a second tier guy) as opposed to looking at it from the perspective of what could have been. When viewed through those glasses, a loss to Christian in this tournament due to Bobby Roode interference is fine. He’ll now have a midcard feud with Roode, because that’s all Joe is to the promotion: A midcarder.

My only real problem with the tournament results was the fact that Don West and Mike Tenay went crazy trying to figure out why Roode would help Christian. “I understand why the Coalition would, but what Bobby Roode?” was pretty much an exact quote from the commentary. Apparently I’m in the only person who remembers that Roode was a member of the Coalition for about two weeks.

Angle Numero Tres: Champions’ Carnival

I have to give credit where credit was due: The presentation of the title belts to TNA’s new champions tonight was probably the single best segment on Impact that I’ve seen in months. Obviously it helped to further feuds between Christian and Samoa Joe and between Sting and Kurt Angle. However, it did much more than that. Bound for Glory got the strongest positive reaction of any TNA pay per view in months, and the presentation was a strong follow-up to that pay per view. It made the events of the show seem important, which does two things: First of all, it entices individuals who missed the initial airing to buy the replay. Second of all, it plants the seed in fans’ minds that future pay per views will be important, which, combined with other factors, will be more likely to spur on purchases. Perhaps just as important as making PPVs seem special is making the championships themselves seem special, which is another key point that the segment hit on. Jim Cornette was the PERFECT person to put on the microphone during this sort of ceremony, because his many years in the business and his golden tongue allow him to say exactly what needs to be said in these circumstances. When championships are built up as a big deal, fans will pay to see championship matches, which is sort of the whole idea behind having a title in the first place. I can’t even think of any sarcastic comments to make about this segment. It was that good.

And the Rest . . .

~ TNA has decided to put together an angle in which the Dudley Boys hate the X Division. They have Bubba Ray go out there and cut a promo about how the reason for the feud is that THERE IS NO REASON FOR THE FEUD. I could come up with seven better explanations off the top of my head, and I’m not even paid to do so. I’m almost insulted by the laziness of the writing team here.

~ The Dudleys’ rationale may be better than Chris Harris and Rhino, who are now apparently feuding over the fact that Rhino arrived approximately 1.5 seconds late for an interview segment.

~ However, I do have to give TNA some credit for the very subtle foreshadowing of another feud that was alluded to during the Harris/Rhino vs. Roode/Storm match. All I have to say is keep your eye on the chick in the front row with the pro-Bobby Roode signs. She’s a Homewrecker.

~ Why was Samoa Joe dressed as Fidel Castro in Jim Cornette’s office tonight? Halloween isn’t for another three weeks, big guy.

~ Lance Hoyt, Christy Hemme, and Jimmy Rave don’t get along. In-fighting in a TNA tag team? Shocking.

~ Speaking of Jimmy Rave, I implore TNA to fire him and give his spot on the roster to the competitive eating champion who was interviewed on tonight’s episode. The competitive eater displayed more charisma in fifteen seconds than Rave has in his entire professional wrestling career.

~ Disco Inferno may be the first pro wrestler in history to have his career sponsored by a movie. Hopefully this means that, once The Comebacks is out of theaters, Disco will be off of television. If the trailers are any indication, this should occur roughly three days after the film’s release.

~ I really hope that Chocolate Reign’s rat-bagging of Abyss gets PETA to come after TNA. That’d be even better than the WWF vs. WWF feud of years gone by.

Overall

Overall, this was the second consecutive edition of Impact that I would consider to be a very strong show. First of all, the in-ring product has improved drastically since the expansion to two hours. Though the promotion could have had great matches on a one hour show if they paced it properly, they for some reason chose not to engage in this sort of pacing. Now that they’re booking the type of show that they wanted to book all along, match lengths are increasing and providing fans with some encounters that we can really sink our teeth in to. In addition to the quality wrestling, the storytelling on this particular show was excellent. The episode was devoid of the typical TNA angles in which 5,000 things are occurring at once and a flow chart is necessary to determine who hates who. Instead, with both the World Title angle and with the tournament, we’re getting rivalries for which there are simple foundations, with the tension between the competitors slowly growing until it finally explodes on pay per view. Granted, there were a few moments during some of the undercard angles in which it appeared that we were dealing with the old TNA (e.g. Chris Harris being a heel out of the blue, the Dudleys’ feud for no reason, etc.) However, the angles that take up 80% of Impact’s TV are clicking right now, and that’s more than enough to balance out any stupidity in the minor stories. From reading the spoilers for next week, I’m afraid that there’s trouble on the horizon, but I can give this particular episode of Impact nothing but a solid two thumbs up.

Reader Feedback

We’ll start things off with Bernard G., who tried to sway my opinion before I wrote last week’s column:

Had to send this pre-emptive email for the impact crater before you ran down TNA. Simply put this was a solid go home show for bound for glory. The pacing was solid, there was plenty of good action. Amazing Kong was Unbelievable! Everyone got good time and exposure. I’m still not feeling Black Reign, that is a bad idea. Considering all the obstacles, the Pacman situation was handled well, but I hope BFG is the end for Pacman if he is not going to wrestle. Other than that. Thumbs Up!

Well, the bad news for Bernard is that the “preemptive” nature of his e-mail didn’t exactly work, as I’d already written and posted last week’s column before I read his message. The good news is that, even without his influence, I largely agreed. Logic gaps continued to abound in the build up to the Angle/Sting match, but, by that point in time, things were already beyond repair. Last week’s Impact certainly didn’t inspire me to buy Bound for Glory, but it was an improvement over their standard fare.

As far as Pac-Man is concerned, the last I heard was that BFG was scheduled to be his final PPV appearance but that the creative team had come up with something for him to do if he decided to stay longer.

And let’s wrap up this week’s column with Dan H., who was feeling particularly optimistic after last week’s show:

Let me start of by saying that I agree that TNA has had some really shitty shows this year, couple that with horrible booking, and you have a company, that had they started like this in 2002, would have been bankrupt before you could say “Russo did it”. Believe me when I say that ever since I had heard that TNA would be on Spike, way back in 2005, I was ecstatic, mainly because I was getting tired of the WWE and couldn’t watch Impact when they aired it on FSN because I wasn’t home on time to watch it. But that’s neither here nor there. My point is TNA is going in the right direction and hopefully it continues.

On a side note, I was hoping to see the old Sting, the one who was all dark and crap, but I guess that won’t be happening.

Well, Dan’s optimism about the promotion’s future continues to be justified this week. However, like I said earlier, things may not look as promising seven days from now. I’ll be back to take a look at that show. Until they, check out the MySpace, where you can read exclusive blog content and add me as a friend to receive updates when I post new articles here on 411.